“I couldn’t earn enough to get food or a bed, leave alone buy a new stock.”

Huldah wondered why she had come.  Was it only to beg?  In another moment she knew.

“I came to see if you couldn’t ’elp me a bit.  You’ve got good friends and a comfortable home, and plenty to eat and drink.  You surely wouldn’t let me go starving—­me that brought you up, and did everything for you.”

“Everything!” Huldah’s thoughts flew back over her life, from the time her mother died until she made her escape, a year ago, and wondered what was meant by “everything.”

“I know as you can make a good bit by your baskets, and it don’t seem fair that strangers should have it all, do it?”

“Strangers don’t have it all,” said Huldah, warmly.  “Even my best friends don’t.  I have what I earn, to buy what I like with.  I buy my own clothes, and I give Mrs. Perry a little for keeping me—­”

“Oh! a pretty fine thing that!  Why, she ought to be paying you wages for being a little galley-slave to her, and doing all her work!”

“I don’t!” cried Huldah, indignantly.  “I don’t work nearly as hard as I did for you, when I never had a penny of my own, not even from what my baskets made.”

In a moment, though, she was sorry she had lost her temper.  Mrs. Perry, standing at her door watching them, looked so frightened when their words rose high, and Emma Smith herself looked so weary and miserable one could not help pitying her.

“I—­I’ve got half-a-crown in my purse.  I’ll give you that,” said Huldah, gently.  “It’s all I have now, but it will get you a bed and some food.”

Mrs. Perry came towards them.  “Huldah,” she said, kindly, “if your—­ if Mrs. Smith will come in and rest, I’ll make her a cup of tea.  She looks fit to drop.”

The poor tramp turned to her gratefully.  “I feels like it too.  I haven’t tasted anything since yesterday,” she added, feebly; and, now that the eagerness and excitement had died out of her face, she looked almost like a dying woman.

They led the way into the cottage, and gave her the most comfortable chair.  She dropped into it with almost a groan of relief, and then, as though the kindness overcame her, she began to weep weakly.  “I couldn’t help coming to Huldah,” she sobbed.  “I couldn’t keep away.  I haven’t a friend or relation in the world but her, nor nowhere to go,—­but the workhouse, and I can’t go there.  I’d rather die under a hedge.  I’ve always been so used to the open, and my freedom, and I couldn’t bear it.  But I haven’t got a penny, nor no means of getting one.  Whatever I’m going to do I don’t know.  Tom’s put away for three years, and I shan’t ever live to see him come out, I know,—­but nobody cares!  It don’t matter to nobody whether I’m alive or dead.”

The storm had broken by this time, and the crashing of the thunder seemed to add horror to the hopeless misery of her sobs and complainings.  Huldah could scarcely bear it.